Even though I participated in (and sorely lost in) the Chess Championship, I agree that games may be going too far. We had Mornington Crescent Championship or something recently too.
I think some Wikigames can be ok, but a Wikicity may be needed. That said, they do little harm to Wikipedia, as long as there aren't too many. ----- Original Message ----- From: daniwo59@aol.com To: wikiEN-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 1:21 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] Game-playing on Wikipedia
The purpose of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia. Period. Everything else is tangential to that. We have been fortunate in seeing that a strong community has emerged as a result of this common goal, but that is
precisely the
point. The community emerged because a bunch of people around the world
are
trying to create something together. People who are not interested in that
goal
have all the rights in the world not to be involved in it.
Nevertheless, we have recently seen quite a bit of game-playing on Wikipedia. If it is not stopped now, it will continue to grow. We already
have chess,
checkers, hangman, N degrees of separation, and I am sure that there will
be
more to come.
Not only does this clog up an already overburdened Recent Changes page. It is an insult to the many people who have given of their time and money so
that
Wikipedia can become the world's greatest encyclopedia. It detracts from
the
serious nature of the project, and has the potential to turn it into yet another gaming site. As for referring to the people who oppose these
games and
tournaments as "killjoys," this is a very upsetting ad hominem attack. In essence it means that the people who keep Wikipedia's goals in mind are "killjoys." I hardly see how that helps Wikipedia.
Jimbo has offered a place on Wikicities for people to play. He has even suggested on mIRC that it might be ad-free. I hope that these games are
moved
their immediately. I am still astounded that this is even a matter for a
vote.
Danny
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